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How Sept. 11 Changed Goals Of Justice Dept.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has been testifying before Congress this week, arguing for substantial spending increases for counterterrorism programs.

His appearances, in which he is seeking nearly $2 billion in additional spending next year, are a vivid example of the changed priorities of many cabinet agencies in a post-Sept. 11 world, as preventing future attacks has emerged as the Bush administration's top priority.

For Mr. Ashcroft, the change in spending priorities before Sept. 11 and after has been especially noteworthy. Although the attorney general made speeches and delivered Congressional testimony before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in which he said fighting terrorism was a top priority of his agency, he identified more than a dozen other objectives for greater emphasis within the Justice Department before the attacks, internal department documents show.

In his final budget request for the fiscal year 2003 submitted on Sept. 10 to the budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the attorney general called for spending increases in 68 programs, none of which directly involved counterterrorism. Upgrading the F.B.I.'s computer system, one of the areas in which he sought an increase, is relevant to combating terrorism, though Mr. Ashcroft did not defend it on that ground.

But in his Sept. 10 submission to the budget office, Mr. Ashcroft did not endorse F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators.

Mr. Ashcroft proposed cuts in 14 programs. One proposed $65 million cut was for a program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants for equipment, including radios and decontamination suits and training to localities for counterterrorism preparedness.

Last August, before he proposed cutting the program to $44 million from $109 million, Mr. Ashcroft went to Dayton, Ohio, and watched a preparedness exercise and announced grants totaling $1.8 million to Ohio. He said: ''All of these domestic preparedness efforts have one overarching goal: to ensure that those of you at the state and local levels build the critical capacity to adequately respond to domestic terrorism. At the Department of Justice, we recognize that the threat of terrorism here at home is a serious and growing challenge for our nation.''

Mr. Ashcroft justified the cut to Mr. Daniels by saying that states had been slow to develop the statewide plans needed to qualify for federal money. Congressional critics of the attorney general said the Justice Department was not really interested in the program and did not help states develop the required plans.

In various listings of priorities for his department issued between May 10 and Aug. 9, made available to The New York Times by Congressional officials critical of Mr. Ashcroft, the attorney general did not single out counter-terrorism.

For example, in a May 10 letter to department heads, which told them the agenda the new administration was setting, he did not mention terrorism. Instead, Mr. Ashcroft cited seven goals: reducing gun violence and drug trafficking; helping states with anticrime programs; reducing racial discrimination; securing the nation's borders and cutting the immigration backlog; reducing overcrowding and drug use in prisons; securing the rights of victims of crime and strengthening internal financial and computer systems.

Department officials said none of Mr. Ashcroft's budget recommendations or priority memorandums before Sept. 11 detracted from the government's counterterrorism efforts. A department budget official said the listing was intended to focus new attention on ''specific presidential initiatives, such as gun violence and immigration services,'' and not to suggest that other department functions were unimportant.

Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said ''The attorney general supported budget requests, last year and this year, that are necessary to support his commitment to counterterrorism.''

To underscore Mr. Ashcroft's dedication to fighting terrorism before Sept. 11, Ms. Comstock also pointed to a variety of statements and speeches in which Mr. Ashcroft said that fighting terrorism was his highest priority.

Testifying before Congress on May 9, Mr. Ashcroft said of counterterrorism, ''The Department of Justice has no higher priority.'' In a July 11 speech at a domestic preparedness summit of the National Governors Association, he said, ''Our No. 1 priority is the prevention of terrorist attacks.''

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But the attorney general's tough talk was not always reflected in the department's priority lists and budget requests, and some former Justice officials and officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation said they were frustrated that he had not supported more financing for counter-terror programs before Sept. 11.

On Aug. 9, a chart titled ''Strategic Plan -- Attorney General Priorities'' was distributed inside the department. This listed the same seven goals and 36 objectives under them. Thirteen of the objectives were highlighted in yellow and explained as ''Highlight=AG Goal,'' including reducing gun violence, cutting the immigration backlog and strengthening internal financial systems. One of the 36 items referred to intelligence and investigation concerning terrorists, but it was not highlighted. A Justice Department official said this was a preliminary document and the eventual version, issued on Nov. 8, made counterterrorism ''the No. 1 goal.''

One outside consultant who has worked with the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies for many years said Mr. Ashcroft's initial focus on other priorities was ''not unusual.''

New attorneys general, he said, always come with their ''local agenda,'' and Mr. Ashcroft highlighted greater enforcement of existing gun laws. He said Ms. Reno ended her tenure as ''perhaps the strongest advocate'' of counterterrorism spending, after starting her tenure emphasizing how the department would try to protect children.

One former federal law enforcement official said that top officials in the F.B.I., which does the bulk of the department's counterterrorism work, had been concerned about Mr. Ashcroft's initial lack of focus on fighting terrorism. He said there was worry among some senior agents that counterterrorism would be downgraded in future years if Mr. Ashcroft's early attitude did not change.

Another former F.B.I. official said that Mr. Ashcroft's attitude ''really undermined a lot of effort to change the culture and change the mind-set'' of F.B.I. agents. Any organization, the official said, reacts to its boss's priorities.

But a senior F.B.I. official said the bureau's final budget request, which had not been approved by the Department of Justice before Sept. 11, did contain substantial counter-terrorism spending.

''We had a fairly robust counterterrorism item in,'' the official said, ''and we expected it was going to survive the department's budget review.''

And the special agent in charge of one major F.B.I. post, who would not allow his name to be used, agreed. He said: ''We were under our own strategic plan. The Tier 1 issues were counterterrorism and counterintelligence.''

On Nov. 8, a new version of the Strategic Plan chart was issued. Instead of seven strategic goals, it had eight. No. 1 was ''Protect America Against the Threat of Terrorism.''

Now Mr. Ashcroft is seeking the money he needs to fulfill that goal.

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A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2002, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: How Sept. 11 Changed Goals Of Justice Dept. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe